

1%; r\¥J 



TOM MOORE IN BERMUDA 



A BIT OF LITERARY GOSSIP. 



J. C. LAWRENCE CLARK. 




^^iW/ ) 



LANCASTER, MASS., U.S.A.; 

PRINTED FOR THE .AUTHOR 

Bv W. J. Coulter, Cour.ant Office, Clinton, M.^ss. 



1897. 
L- 






— ^'^ o^u ^ 



ILL USTRA TIOXS. VII 

PAGE. 

Nea Smith, of Bermuda. From a photoi^rapli, ------- § 

Nea Tucker, oi-' Fiji. From a ph(itoi;raph. -------- g 

"Nea'.s" Home, St. George's, Bermuda. I'Vom a photoi:;raph b)- Lu.sher. - - g 

Buildings Bay. From a photograph by Lu.sher. ------- jo 

"A Shady Bermuda Road." From a photograph b}^ Lu.sher. - - - - ii 

Water Street, St. George's. From a Photograph by Lusher. - - - - 12 

St. George's, Eighty Years Since. From an engraving b>- L C. Stadt (pubUshed 

at London in 1816), in the possession of the Hon. Joseph M. Ha\\vard. - 12 

Caric.\ture of Moore. By T. Crofton Croker. From "Notes from the Letters 

of Thomas Moore to his Music Publisher, James Power." New \'ork: 1S54. - 16 




7 



Tom Moore in Bermuda 



Bermuda, that "inchauntcd isle" of which earl>- voy- 
agers fabled, and wliich, in hitter-day romance, the good 
ship Grosvcnor tried so hard to make, has its literary 
associations. Who does not know that there Prospero 
reigned? No se\enteenth century anthology is complete 
w'ithout Andrew Marvell's "Song of the Emigrants in 

Bermuda": 

"Where the remote Bermudas ride 
On the ocean's bosom unespied." 

There, as tradition tells, sojourned Edmund Waller, ex- 
iled by a hostile Parliament, or mayhap seeking in the 
new world a balm for unrequited love. In the last of his 
poems to "Sacharissa" (the Lady Dorothy Sidne\' ). 
written shorth- before her marriage, he exclaims: 

"Ah, cruel nvmph, from whom her humble swain 
Flies for relief unto the raging main. 
And from the waves and tempests does expect 
A milder fate than from her cold neg;lect." 





W.\LI.ILr's l'nl\T 



A century and a 
half later a little 
boy picked up 
on the shore of 
Bermuda a gold 
ring bearing the 
t initials " E. W." 
Some say that 
this ring appear- 
ed once to have 
contained a lock 
nf hair, and that 
scratched on the 
inner side was 
the tender posy, 
"Whose hair I 
-\ear 1 loved 
dear." Whether 
or not the poet- 
politician e\'er 
-aw Bermuda! I), 
the spot on .'^t. 



TOM MOORE IX BERMUDA. 




TOM MOORE IX BERMUDA. 



3 



David's Island where the ring was found is 
known to this day as Waller's Point. 

Ninety \-ears ago another poet came to the 
Summer Islands. 

Thomas ;\Ioore. at the age of twenty, had 
gone over to London from Dublin, in order 
to enter himself at the Inner Temple and 
publish a translation of Anacreon. His wit 
and good nature, and his gift for singing and 
playing, soon made him a favorite in society. 

F"our years later, through the influence of 



the Earl ot Aloira, he received the appoint- 
ment of Registrar of the Court of Vice- 
Admiralty at Bermuda. Flarl)- in November, 
1S03, he reached Norfolk, Virginia, and about 
the middle of the following January arrived 
at Bermuda. His duties were, he writes, " to 
overhaul the accounts of skippers and their 
mates." 

The perquisites of the office were largely 
dependent on \\ar. Moore was chagrined 
to find that, in a time of peace, an income 






which he had been led to suppose was be- 
tween three and four thousand pounds dwin- 
dled to a very trifling sum. In a letter to 
his mother, written 19 January, 1804, he says: 
" I shall tell you at once that it is not worth 
my while to remain here; that I shall just 

wait till the spring months come in, 

when the passages home are always delight- 
fully pleasant, and that then I shall get upon 
the wing to see my dear friends once more. 

I"A'en a Spanish war would make my 

income by no means worth staying for." He 



notes in passing that there are two American 
ships for trial, "whose witnesses I have e.\- 
amined, and whose cause will be decided 
ne.\t month. ' 

In the same letter he writes: "The Admi- 
ral, Sir Andrew Mitchell, has insisted on m\- 
making his table my own during my sta)- 
here." He seems also to have spent much of 
his time at Walsingham (2), the residence 
of the Hon. Samuel Trott, afterwards Presi- 
dent or Acting Governor of the colony. At 
any rate, the estate is now exhibited to tour- 



TOM MOORK IX hi-:kmvi)a. 



ists as " Moore's home." VV'alsinsjham House 
stands looking across the Castle Harbour, on 
a neck of land traversed by the hiLjh\\a\' 
from Hamilton to St. George's. Through an 
avenue of cedars one approaches a large, 
farm-like dwelling near the shore, between 
two mangrove-bordered lakes. A bell to 
announce visitors hangs on a pride-of-India 



tree near by. Like nearly all Bermudian 
buildings, walls and roof alike are of white- 
washed limestone. Inside, the woodwork is 
of native cedar, which time has stained a 
rich, dark brown. The high, empt\' rooms, 
the winding staircase, have a look at once of 
manorial ease and of loneliness and decay. 
The house is vacant, except an ell in the rear. 




which is inhabited b_\' a not over clean fam- 
ily of Portuguese. What is shown as "Moore's 
room" is an ample apartment with a blue- 
tiled fireplace, on the ground-floor. 

F"rom the house a foot-path leads through 
wooded grounds. Here the coffee-tree and 
the cherry, the lemon and the orange, mingle 
with the omnipresent cedar and oleander, 
and the mxrtle clambers over rock and tree. 



Here you may see " Moore's calabash tree," 
a veteran of its race, still bearing on gnarled 
branches its green, oval gourds. It was of 
this ver\' tree that Moore wrote to his friend 
Joseph Atkinson: 

" 'The daylight is gone — but before we depart 
Here's a brimmer of love to the friend of my heart. 
To the friend who himself is a chalice, a bowl 
In which heaven has poured a rich bumper of 
soul.' (3) 



TOM MOORE IX HKRMCDA. 




T(KM MOORE IX BERMUDA. 



" 'Twas thus by the shade of a calabash tree (4) 
W ith a few who can feel and remember like me, 
The charm that to sweeten my goblet I threw 
Was a tear to the past and a blessin^ on you." 

At Walsinghan), tiny pools give back the 
blue of the summer sk\-. One may enter 
mysterious caverns, where the guide sets fire 
to a handful of dry palmetto-leaves, and you 
see, festooned with icicle-like stalactites, 
which pearly, limpid pools reflect, long galler- 
ies winding awaj' undergroimd. 

Perhaps it was at Walsingham that Moore 
wrote: 

"Close to my wooded bank below 
In glassy calm the waters sleep, 
And to the sunbeam proudly show 
The coral rocks they love to steep. 

"The fainting breeze of morning fails. 

The drowsy boat moves slowly past. 
And I can almost touch its sails 

That languish idly round the mast. 
The sun has now profusely given 
The flashes of a noontide heaven. 
And, as the wave reflects his beams. 
Another heaven its surface seems ! 
Blue light and clouds of silvery tears 

So pictured o'er the waters lie. 
That every languid bark appears 

To float along a burning sky !" 

With similar enthusiasm he writes to his 
mother, in the letter of the 19th January: 

"These little islands of Bermuda form certainly 
one of the prettiest and most romantic spots that 1 
could ever have imagined, and the descriptions which 
represent it as a place of fairy enchantment are very 
little beyond the truth. From my window now as 1 
write, I can see five or si.x different islands, the most 
distant not a mile from the others, and separated by 
the clearest, sweetest coloured sea you can conceive; 
for the water here is so transparent that, in coming in, 
we could see the rocks under the ship quite plainly. 
These little islands are thickly covered with cedar 
groves, through the vistas of which you catch a few 
pretty white houses (5), which my poetical short-sight- 
edness always transforms into temples; and I often 
expect to see Nymphs and Graces come tripping from 
them, when, to my great disappointment, I find that a 
few miserable negroes is all 'the bloomy flush of life' 
it has to boast of. Indeed, you must not be surprised, 
dear mother, if I fall in love with the first pretty face 
1 see on my return home, for certainly ' the human 
face divine' has degenerated wonderfully in these 



countries; and if I were a painter, and wished to pre- 
serve my ideas of beauty immaculate, I would not 
suffer the brightest belle of Bermuda to be my house- 
maid." 

But the future is yet unseen, as the Em- 
peror Marcus reminds us. In a note to 
Moore's rhymed epistle to Joseph Atkinson, 
which bears date of March, 1804, we read: 

"The women of Bermuda, though not generally 
handsome, have an affectionate languor which is 
always interesting. What the French imply by their 
epithet aimanie seems very much the character of the 
young Bermudian girls — that pre-disposition to lov- 
ing, wliich. without being awakened by any particular 
object, diffuses itself through the general manner in 
a tone of tenderness that never fails to fascinate." 

The reason for this change of view is not 
far to seek. Between January and March, 
Moore had met with one of those frequent 
and not too profound e.xperiences of the 
heart which furnished him such plentiful lit- 
erar}- material. He had become acquainted 
with "Nea" — "the Rose of the Isles." as she 
has been called — and was already celebrating 
her charms in half playful, half passionate 
verse. 

Hesther Louisa Tucker, the "Nea" (6) of 
the poems, was born at sea (so sa_\'s the 
legend) eighteen years before this time. In 
1829, twelve years after " Nea's" death, a vis- 
itor to the islands (7) wrote of her: " From a 
likeness which I saw, I should judge her to 
have been a fine woman, but it is said that 
she was indebted for her fame less to her 
beaut\- than to the fascination and easy 
gracefulness of her manners." We have 
Aloore's testimony that "Nea," like other 
Bermudian girls, danced well: 

"Divinely through the graceful dance 
You seemed to float in silent song, 
Bending to earth that beamy glance, 
As if to guide your steps along." 

But beyond the tradition of her beauty 
we have little knowledge what manner of 
woman she was. The house at St. George's 
where her girlhood was spent is yet stand- 
ing, but the "alley of lin:es" of which Moore 
sang, leading to her home, has vanished as 



TOM MOORK IN BERMirn.l. 




T(UI MOORE IN HERMIWA. 



uttcrh' as have the men and women who 
passed beneath its shade. The nearest house 
was the Admiral's, where we know that Moore 
was a frequent sjjuest. 

Thouf:;h the "Odes 
to Nea" are tainted 
with the fashionable 
libitliosity of the time, 
the flirtation between 
these young people 
seems to have been 
quite an innocent one. 
Each probabl)- under- 
stood that nothing;" se- 
rious was meant. Like 
the TnntviTcs of the 
twelfth centur_\-, Moore 
made it a religious duty 
to love. Miss Hett)-'s 
satisfaction at the at- 
tentions of the clever 
Irishman was presum- 
ably not lessened b_\- 
the fact that they 
aroused the jealousy 
of one William Tuck- 
er, to whom she was 
alread)- betrothed. This gentleman had, 
when very young, been brought to Bermuda 
from St. Eustatius, perhaps in consequence 
of the cap- -- 

ture of that , \ 

island b>- the /' 

French the 
ver}' year of 
his birth 
(I 781 ). In 
the lines, 

"Well, peace to , 

thy heart, tho' X 

another's it be. 
And health to 

thy cheek, tho' 

it bloom not 

for mel" 

he is apparently referred to. Not long after 
the Moore episode William and Hett\ Tucker 
were married. When, two vcars later, in 





V 

Nea Tuckf-R, of I'iji. 



" Epistles, Odes, and other Poems, "Moore 
published thirteen somewhat erotic "Odes to 
Nea, written in Bermuda," Mr. Tucker seems 
to have felt that insult 
was added to injury; 
and it is related that 
to the end of his life 
he would never allow 
the works of the ob- 
no.xious bard in his 
house. He died, full 
of }-ears and honour, 
in 1S71. By one of 
time's little ironies, 
two of William Tuck- 
er's great-granddaugh- 
ters are christened Nea 
in memory of their an- 
cestress's acquaintance 
with the man he de- 
tested. Hesther Tuck- 
er died while still 
N'oung (8), after bear- 
ing her husband a large 
family. 

Of the "Odes to Nea" 
themselves something 
should be said. They show the most marked 
characteristics of the author's earl>- poet r_\-; the 
oriential voluptuousness of his fanc_\-, his 

fondness for 
classical allu- 
sion, the mel- 
ody of his 
verse, the fre- 
quent triviali- 
t\", or, if one 
may be par- 
d o n e d the 
pun. Little- 
ness of his 
thought. He 
is still the 
"young Ca- 
tullus uf his day," as Lord Byron called him; 
his lay is "sweet," and occasionall\- "immor- 
al." The following lines were praised b\- an 




Nf.a Smith, of Bermuda. 



TOM MOORE AV BERMUDA. 




TOM MOORE LV HERMUDA. 



10 



■earh' American critic for " an almost Arabian 
boldness of expression": 

"Behold the leafy mangrove, bending 
O'er the waters blue and bright, 
Like Nea's silky lashes, lending 
Shadow to her eyes of light." 

■One of the best of the "Odes" is that entitled 
"The Snow .Spirit," beginning: 

"No, ne'er did the wave in its element steep 

An island of lovelier charms; 
It blooms in the giant embrace of the deep 

Like Hebe in Hercules's arms! 
The tint of your bowers is balm to the eye. 

Their melody balm to the ear; 
But the fiery planet of day is too nigh. 

And the Snow-Spirit never comes here!" 

Another commemorates a stroll with " Nea" 
beside 

"That little bay, where winding in 
From ocean's rude and angry din, 

(As lovers steal to bliss) 
The billows kiss the shore, and then 
Flow canily to the sea again. 

As though they did not kiss!" 

This is said to be Buildings Bay, near the 
south-eastern corner of St. George's Island. 
The ba\' is so called because there Sir George 
Somers and his shipwrecked crew built their 
two cedar vessels. Moore's description of 
the spot is pretty enough to make up for a 
later stanza: 

"I stooped to cull, with faltering hand, 
.A shell that on the golden sand 

Before us faintly gleamed; 
I raised it to your lips of dew, 
You kissed the shell, I kissed it too — 

Good heaven! how sweet it seemed!" 

Can youthful sentimentality farther go:' I 
shall quote /;/ extcnso the lines "On Seeing an 
Infant in Nea's Arms," in spite of the fact 
that Moore excluded them from the later 
■editions. They seem to me, after all, to pos- 
sess a certain grace: 

"The first ambrosial child of bliss 

That Psyche to her bosom prest, 
Was not a brighter babe than this. 

Nor blushed upon a lovelier breast; 
His little snow-white fingers, straying 




ISUII-IJINGS It.W. 



Along her lip's luxurious flower. 
Looked like a flock of ring-doves playing 

Silvery, 'mid a roseate bower. 
And when, to shade the playful boy. 

Her dark hair fell, in mazes bright. 
Oh! 'twas a type of stolen joy; 

'Twas love beneath the veil of night! 
Soft as she smiled, he smiled again; 

They seemed so kindred in their charms 
That one might think the babe had then 

Just budded in her blooming arms! 
He looked like something formed of air. 

Which she had uttered in a sigh. 
Like some young spirit, resting there. 

That late had wandered from her eye !" 

Taken as a whole, the "Odes to Nea" are 
neither better nor worse than the general run 
of Moore's minor verse. 

One anecdote of Moore's life in Bermuda 
has come down to us. He was very inquisi- 
tive. Also he was morbidl\- afraid of a 
mouse. A Bermudian lad>- whom he often 
visited learned of his timidit}-, and deter- 
mined to use it to punish him for his habit 
of prying. She secured a live mouse, and, 
e.xpecting a call from the Registrar, locked 
it in her work-box. Moore had not been 
long seated when he began trying the lock, 
and at last raised the lid, when, to his fright 
and disgust, out jumped the mouse into his 
lap. He never forgave the lad)', and to her, 
it is said, were addressed the verses, — 

"When I loved you 1 can't but allow 
I had many an e.xquisite minute; 
But the scorn that I feel for you now 
Hath even more luxurv in it! 



TOM MOORE IN BERMUDA. 



II 



"Thus, whether we're on or we're off, 

Some witchery seems to await you; 
To love you is pleasant enough, 
And, oh! 'tis delicious to hate you!" 

Hut even love-making, and the "innum- 
erable" dances of which he wrote home, with 
gay conceit, "There has been nothing but 
gaiety since I came, and there never was 
such a furor for dissipation known in the 
town of St. George's before," even the grand 
turtle feasts of calapash and Madeira, could 
not stay the departure of the Mercurial poet. 
Toward the end of April he sailed away on 
the frigate Boston; and the 7th May found 
him in New York, writing to his mother in 
the usual tone of British travellers in Amer- 
ica at that time: ".Such a place! Such a peo- 
ple! Barren and secluded as Bermuda is, I 
think it a paradise to an\' spot in America I 
have )-et seen." After some travel in the 
United States and Canada, he sailed in Octo- 
ber for England (9). 

Moore's experience in sinecure-holding 
was dearly bought. In 1818 he became liable 
for six thousand pounds, which his deputy at 
Bermuda had embezzled, and for two years 
he was obliged to remain abroad to avoid 
imprisonment. During this e.xile Moore 
made the acquaintance in Paris of Washing- 
ton Irving. In a conversation which Irving 
noted in his diary ( 16 May, 1821 ), the poet's 
vanit\' crops out a little: "Moore told me 
that he was once giving Kenney an account 
of his misfortunes; the heavy blow he sus- 
tained in consequence of the default of his 
agent in Bermuda. Kenney expressed the 
strongest sympathy. 'Gad, Sir, it's well you 
were a Poet; a Philosopher never would have 
borne it.'" Earl\- in 1822 the matter was 
settled by compromise ( 10). Moore retained 
the office till 1844, eight \ears before his 
death, when he was removed on the ground 
of continued non-residence ! During the 
fort} years he held the appointment he had 
been in the active discharge of its duties less 
than four months. 

Nine \ears after his departure from Ber- 
nuula, Moore wrote, in the "Irish ^lelodies": 



"Oh! had we some bright little isle of our own. 
In a blue summer ocean far off and alone. 
Where a leaf never dies in the still-blooming bowers, 
And the bee banquets on through a whole year of 
flowers; 
Where the sun loves to pause 

With so fond a delay, 
That the night only draws 
A thin veil o'er the day, 
Where simply to feel that we breathe, that we live, 
Is worth the best joy that life elsewhere can give;" 

and it may be that this ideal tropic isle was 
but a memor\' of Bermuda, with its sunny 
skies, and its shores washed by delicate blue 
waters (11). 

F'or one not wholly possessed b}- that 
Zeitgeist which no longer knows the Bard 
of F>in, memories of Moore still linger 




about those pleasant coasts. Often, strolling 
along a shady Bermuda road, I have fancied 
I might meet him, riding out " into the coun- 
try parts of the island, to swear a man to the 
truth of a Dutch invoice he has translated." 
Or in the dim parish church I have asked 
myself half seriously if that were not Mr. 
Registrar Moore, nodding over the sermon, 
in the corner of the Admiral's pew. At St. 
George's Town — in his da\- the centre of 
Bermuda — it is easy enough to picture him, 
perhaps attending through the narrow streets 
some island belle, who listens, shy but 
amused, to his clever sallies. 

At St. George's the hundreth anniversa\- 
of Moore's birth was not unremembered. 



TOM MOORE IN BERMrDA. 



The Hon. Joseph M. Ha\\vard, the present 
Ma\or (iSg/), writes me: 

"On the 28th May, 1877, the occasion of Moore's 
centennial, I caused the town flag of St. George's to 
15C hoisted, in memory of Thomas Moore and his con- 
nection witli Bermuda. To explain the reason to the 
public, 1 copied from the Epistle ' To the Marcioness 
Dowager of Donegall, from Bermuda, January, 1804,' 
the stanza beginning, 

' The morn was lovely, every wave was still. 
When the first perfume of a cedar hill 
Sweetly awaked us, and with smiling charms 
The fairy harbour woo'd us to its arms,' 

and posted it on the flag-staff. It was read contin- 
ually during the day, and several Irishmen of all 
classes, finding out with whom it originated, called at 
my place of business, thanking me for honouring 
their countryman, Tom Moore." 




Wateh Street. .St. George's. 




Sr. t ,{■:<. H(;i-:"s El(,Hl\ \ kaks >i.»J(.h. 



TOM MOORE /X BERMUDA. 



13 



NOTES. 



( I ) The Waller myth rests on the burlesque poem, 
■"The Battle of the Summer Islands," which narrates 
the attempted capture of two whales off the south 
coast of Bermuda. Though the poem bears strong 
internal evidence that the author was never in Ber- 
muda — for instance the lines, 

"With the sweet sound of Sacharissa's name 
I'll make the list'ning savages grow tame ;'' 

for whatever inhabitants Bermuda had originally 
were exterminated by Spanish slavers long before its 
settlement by Englishmen — the central incident 
smacks of truth. Waller may well have heard it 
from some sea-faring acquaintance. 

" Waller's lively picture of the battle of the whales with Ber- 
muda's roclcy shores, and his charming description of the nature 
and products of the island, have so much original freshness that 
-one can easily understand iiow the poem has been interpreted as 
the utterance of impressions received in the place itself." Carl 
Forsstrand : "' Bland ( Heandrar och Liljor."' rl'ranslated by the 
Rev. Manfred LilUefors.) 

(2) It seems likely that this part of the island and the adja- 
cent bay have borne the name Walsingham for almost three 
hundred years. One of Sir George Soniers's shipwrecked 
mariners was Robert Walsingham. That he bore his part 
bravely, when, in 1010, after almost a year's e.^ile,* Sir George 
sailed for Virginia out of the dangerous harbour of Bermu- 
da, we know; "When shee strncke vpon the Rocke, the 
Cock-swayne one Walnngham beeiug in the Boate, with a 
quicke spirit (wheu wee were all amazed, and our hearts 
failed) did give way stoutly, and so by Gods gooilness lice 
led it out at three fadome, and three fadome and an halfe 



».An expedition bound for Virginia with settlers and supplies, 
commanded by Sir George .Somers, Sir Thomas Gates, and Cap- 
tain Newport, was dispersed in a storm ; and the admiral's ship, 
the Sea-Adventure, was cast on the rocks, and firmly wedged be- 
tween two of them, off the coast of Bermuda. By means of boats, 
all on board, about one iiundred and fifty persons, came safely to 
land. They found the reputed Isle of Devils to be "the richest, 
healthfullest. and pleasing land Uhe quality and bigness thereof 
considered) and meerly naturall, as ever man set foot upon." 
Food was so abundant that another writer declares: ".\ll the 
fairies of the rocks were but flocks of birds, and all the devils that 
haunted the woods but herds of swine." Here they remained nine 
months. .At length they sailed away to Virginia in two pinnaces 
built of the cedar with which the land abounded. Arriving at 
Jamestown, they found tlie colonists there in great destitution. 



water." Walsingham is also mentioned by Captain 
John Smith, who records that "the hunting and fish- 
ing was appointed to Captain Robert Wahim^/iam 
and Mr. Henry Shelly for the company in general." 

Oddly enough, this Mr. Shelly "found a bay so 

full of Mullets, as none of them before had ever seen 
the like," and ////.( bay is known as Shelly Bay to the 
present time. 

Walsingham House is one of the oldest residences 
on the islands. It was one of the first houses built 
chiefly of stone, and is a good specimen of the early 
style of building — upright cedar studs with lath and 
plaster between. It seems worth while to glance at 
its history and that of the family by memories of 
whom it is haunted — one of those old Bermudian 
families who played their parts so picturesquely in 
the large, extravagant, bygone days before slavery 
was abolished throughout the British Empire. 

PerientTrott.a London merchant, was "Husband" 
of the Bermuda Company. Three sons of his emi- 
grated to the colony, to take charge of the whale fish- 
eries, and to safeguard the interests of their kinsman, 
the Earl of Warwick, .-^bout 1665 or 1670, one of 
these three brothers, Samuel by name, built Walsing- 
ham House, on land belonging to the Earl. He left 
it by will to his eldest son. Years after the coming 
of the Trotts, the Warwick family tried, unsuccess- 
fully, to dispossess their relatives of this property. 
For a generation or so the estate descended by entail. 

The place was famous for open-handed hospitality. 



.Almost immediately Sir George Somers started back for Bermuda 
in one of the pinnaces, to found a settlement there as a base of 
supplies for the Virginia colony. He reached the islands only to 
die, and his discouraged companions embarked for England, 
carrying Sir George Somers's body with them. But his heart they 
buried at Bermuda, near the spot which is now the .St. George's 
park. With an intentional double significance the islands were 
renamed the Suiumer Isles. 

In England the advantages of these delectible islands were 
glowingly set forth, a Bermuda Company was formed, as an off 
shoot from the \'irginia Company, and, in 1612. a colony was 
established. 

Not only was this storm the means of opening up the Beriiiuda.s 
to European settlement, but a very good case ean be made out 
to show that it was the original of -Shakspere's "Tempest" 



TOM MOORE IX BERMUDA. 



14 



No stranijer of distinction visited Bermuda but was 
welcome at Walsinghani. Among others, the Rev. 
John Whitetield, during one of his meteoric evangel- 
izing tours, was entertained there. 

At length the eldest son of the family displeased 
his father by being "ower thick" with a Bermudian 
girl of lower station than his own, and was sent away 
to recover from his infatuation. After he was gone 
the girl gave birth to a son; and on coming home he, 
like an honourable man, married her. By English 
law, however, this act did not legitimize the son 
already born. Other children came. He inherited 
the propertv, and, in course of time, died. The first 
son born in wedlock had died earlier. To that son's 
infant daughter was bequeathed another estate, at 
Bailey's Bay, on the north shore of Bermuda, and 
VValsingham went to the bastard. 

The grandson of Samuel, the bastard, was Presi- 
dent of Bermuda, and the last nf the Trotts to own 
Walsingham. The President was a man who lived 
not wiselv but too well; and, at his death, the place 
passed by marshal's sale into the hands of another 
family. 

(3) In the later editions of Moore's works the 
second distich appears thus altered : 

" 'To the kindest, the dearest— oh! judge by that tear, 
That I shed when 1 name him, how kind and how dear!' " 

(4) Richard Cotter, Purser, R. N., wrote in 1824; 
"The shade of the Calabash Tree, mentioned in the 
writings of our celebrated poet, Moore, and which 
time appears only to have improved, is still the rest- 
ing-place of pic-nic parties from St. George's and oth- 
er parts of the colony." Years afterward, in the intro- 
duction to the second volume of his collected works, 
Moore himself observed ; 

" How truly politic it is in a poet to connect his verse with well 
known and interesting localities, — to wed his song to scenes 
already invested with fame, and thus lend it a chance of sharing 
the charm which encircles them, — I liave myself, in more than 
-one instance, very agreeably experienced. Among the memorials 
of this description, wliich as I learn with pleasure and pride, still 
keep me remembered in some of those beautiful regions of the 
West which I visited, 1 shall mention but one slight instance, as 
showing liow potently the Genius of the Place may lend to song a 
life and imperishableness to which, in itself, it boasts no claim or 
pretension. The following lines in one of my Bermudian poems: 
' "Twas thus by the shade of the Calabash tree. 
With a few who could feel and remember like me.' 
still live in memory, I am told, on those fairy shores, connecting 
my name with the noble old tree, which, I believe, still adorns it. 
One of the few treasures (of any kind) 1 possess, is a goblet formed 
of one of the fruit-shells of tliis remarkable tree, which was brought 
from Bermuda a few years since by Mr. Dudley Costello, and 
which that gentleman very kindly presented to me.*'* 

•"20th [March, 1S34]. A beautiful present from Mr. Costello 
of a cup formed out of the calabash nut, which he brought some 
years ago for me from Bermuda. The cup very handsomely and 
tastefully mounted, and Bessy all delight with \\..^'~Moorc s 
-Diary. 



The old tree has been thus commemorated by a 
Bermudian poet, Thomas E. Nelmes : 

"Think of that social day. 

Which gave the Tree its fame. 
Full sixty years away,— 

-And breathe in love his name. 
Friends absent not forgot,— 

Friends present ! frank and free. 
Own this a pleasant spot. 

And this a hallowed Tree." 

(c) —"thickly sprinkled over hill and plain, 

And by the margin of the dimpled main. 
Oft half concealed o'er topping groves behind 
Of lines, palmettoes, and the pride of Ind, 
The white-washed cottages with smiling mien 
Seemed tell-tales of the happiness within." 

— T. E. Nelmes. 

(6) viu ivouvvu"-A. new one is queen," Euripides: 
"Medea," line 967 — in other words, "off with the old 
love, on with the new." The fitness of the words, 
which stand at the head of the "Odes to Nea," the 
first of these "Odes" shows : 

" Nea, the heart which she forsook 
For thee were but a worthless shrine." 

I was assured at Bermuda that " Nea" was an Indian 
name ! 

(7) Susette Harriet Lloyd. In her " Sketches of 
Bermuda" (Londcfn; 1835), Miss Lloyd gives an ac- 
count of her sojourn in Bermuda in l82g, as a member 
of the family of Archdeacon Spencer. 

(8) "DIED 

"In St. George's, after a short illness, on the morning of the 
2d instant, (aged 31 years), Mrs. HESTHER LOUISA TUCK- 
ER, Wife of William Tucker, Esq., a Member of .Assembly, 
and also a Magistrate for that Town and Parish. 

" Possessing a most amiable and benevolent disposition, no one 
was more esteemed and beloved by her Friends, when living, and 
no one has been more unfeignedly regretted and lamented by them 
after death, than Mrs. Tucker. 

" The unprecedented assemblage of persons of either sex, and 
of all ages and conditions, collected to pay the remains the last sad 
tribute of respect, the tears which fell in sympathetic unison with 
those that graced the modest eulogy of the pulpit : and those un- 
numbered which bedewed her early grave, have sufficiently attested 
the merits of the deceased : and the Individuals who are more im- 
mediately affected by this dispensation of the Divine Providence, 
will, doubtless, find due consolation in the well founded confidence, 
that as the Friend and Relative wiiose loss they deplore had lived 
here in the continued exercise of all the moral and social duties of 
the Woman and the Christian, so when her mortal frame was com- 
mitted to its kindred dust, her Immortal Spirit, 

' pure, even as the best are pitre^^ 

had already 'winged its way' to those .l/ansioKS in the Meaiens, 
not made with hands, but prepared 'ere time was." for the abode 
of the 'departed just made perfect,' there to reap the unfading, the 
never failing joys of an endless eternity."— 5fr/«7«A/ Gazette. 6 
Dec, 1S17. 

(g) Near the time of Moore's departure the man- 
of-war Li-aiii/tr touched at Bermuda. On board of 
her was the famous traveller, Basil Hall, then, how- 
ever, a lively " mid " of sixteen. In later life. Captain 



TOM MOORK IN BERMUDA. 



IS 



Hall paid a trlowing tribute to Moore's poetic descrip- 
tions : 

"The most pleasing and most exact description which I know 
of Bermuda," he writes, "is to be found in Moore's "Odes and 
Epistles' - , 'J'he reason why his account exceeds in Ix^auty 
that of other men probably is, that the scenes described he so 
much beyond the scope of ordinary observation in colder climates, 
and the feelings which they excite in the l^eholder are so much 
higher than those produced by the scenery we have been accus- 
tomed to look at, that, unless the imagination be deeply drawn 
upon and the diction sustained at a correspondent pitch, the 
words alone strike the ear, while the listener's fancy remains 
where it was. In Moore's account there is not only no exaggera- 
tion, but. on the contrary, a wonderful degret- of temperance in 
the midst of a feast wliich, to his rich fancy, nnist have been 
peculiarly tempting." 



(ro) During his stay in Paris, Moore learned from 
a Mr. Goold, a naval officer returned from Bermuda, 
that " his little friend, Mrs. \V, Tucker, was dead, and 
that they showed her f,''Tave at St. George's as being 
that of Nea." 

( 1 1 ) " W hen I left Bermuda 1 could not help regretting that 
the hopes which took me thither could not be even half realized, 
for I should love to live there, and you would Hke it too, dear 
mother; and I think, if the situation would give me but a fourth 
of what I was so deludingly taught to expect, you should all have 
come to me ; and though set apart from the rest of the world, we 
should have found in that quiet spot, and under that sweet sky, 
quite enough to cou)iferbalance iv/iat the rest of the ivQrld could 
give us."' — Moore to his viother, \i May. 1804. 






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